Elaine Brown (born March 2, 1943) is an American prison activist, writer, singer, and former Black Panther Party chairwoman who is based in Oakland, California.

[4][5] Upon arriving in California with little money and few contacts, Brown got work as a cocktail waitress at the strip club The Pink Pussycat.

While working at the Pink Pussycat, she met Jay Richard Kennedy, a music executive who taught her about the intricacies of social justice.

In April 1968, after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., she attended her first meeting of the Los Angeles chapter of the Black Panther Party.

[9] In 1968, Brown was commissioned by David Hilliard, the Party chief of staff, to record her songs, a request resulting in the album Seize the Time.

Brown was part of a U.S. People's Anti-Imperialist Delegation which visited China in 1970, along with fellow prominent party member Eldridge Cleaver.

In 1973, Brown was commissioned to record more songs by Black Panther Party founder and Minister of Defense Huey P. Newton.

[8] When Newton fled to Cuba in 1974 to avoid criminal charges, he appointed Brown to lead the Black Panther Party.

After leaving the Black Panther Party, also in order to raise her daughter Ericka, Brown worked on her memoir, A Taste of Power.

[18] In 1996, Brown moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and founded Fields of Flowers, Inc., a non-profit organization committed to providing educational opportunities for impoverished African-American children.

Around the same time, she continued her advocacy for incarcerated youth by founding and leading the Michael Lewis Legal Defense Committee.

Brown would eventually write a non-fiction novel, The Condemnation of Little B, which analyzes the prosecution of Lewis as part of the greater problem of the increased imprisonment of black youth.

Running on the Green Party ticket, Brown hoped to become mayor in order to use her influence to bring the Michael Lewis case to prominence, as well as to empower blacks in Brunswick by using her elected office to create a base of economic power for the city's majority black and poor population through redistribution of the city's revenues.

Though Brown was eventually disqualified from running and voting in Brunswick because she failed to establish residency in the city, her efforts brought widespread attention to Michael Lewis's case.

[21] Brown intended on using her campaign to bring many minorities to the Green Party in the hope that it would better represent a revolutionary force for social justice.